INDIAN POACHERS: AN EYE FOR AN EYE

Should park rangers be able to shoot at those who threaten endangered species?,

MUMBAI // A debate is raging over whether forest rangers in India should be allowed to shoot poachers who target endangered species.

A national park in India’s north region recently became the latest to allow rangers to use deadly force against the criminals.

Authorities at the Corbett Tiger Reserve in Uttarakhand state on Wednesday issued “shoot on sight” orders to its rangers for a five-day operation against armed poachers. Hundreds of surveillance cameras, which alert the rangers when intruders are detected, have been set up. One hundred and fifty rangers have been deployed for the operation as the authorities step up efforts to protect the tigers.

The question of how far India should go in its battle against poachers came into focus this month after the international broadcast of Killing For Conservation, a BBC documentary.

The BBC said the report exposed the “dark secrets” of Kaziranga National Park in the north-eastern state of Assam, home to the endangered onehorned rhino.

The BBC claimed that rangers at the national park were encouraged to shoot poachers – armed or unarmed. Figures provided by the national park to the BBC showed that 23 poachers were killed in 2015.

Critics of the shoot on sight policy argued against what they saw as the militarisation of conservation and giving rangers the power to carry out extrajudicial killings of poachers.

The critics also warned of the risk that innocent people might be killed or maimed.

Some conservationists, however, said tough measures were necessary to protect endangered species and that rangers had to be able to defend themselves against armed poachers.

“If the forest guards were not armed and those powers were not given in Kaziranga, we would not have the Indian onehorned rhino alive today,” said Trishant Simlai, a conservation biologist from Pune, western India.

“Poaching is a huge problem in India and the demand for rhino horn is so high that the threat to rhinos is always going to be there.”

Rhino horn and tiger bones, both widely used in Chinese traditional medicine, fetch vast sums of money in China and Vietnam. A kilogram of rhino horn can be sold for tens of thousands of dollars. Tiger skins similarly fetch enormous sums of money.

“A certain amount of policing is necessary but then at what point do you draw the line?” Mr Simlai said. “How much power do you give and how do you make sure that power is not abused?”

Dharmendra Khandal, a conservation biologist with Tiger Watch, a non-government organisation that combats poaching at Ranthambore National Park in the northern state of Rajasthan, said such decisions should be left up to individual forest authorities.

“In areas like Kaziranga, they are difficult areas and there are extremists there,” he said. “In Ranthambore and many other reserves, shoot on sight is not possible. Millions of people use the forests for grazing their animals and other purposes.” The numbers show that Kaziranga’s conservation efforts have been successful – the park has about 2,400 one- horned rhinos, the largest population of the animals in the world.

But despite the rangers’ power to shoot poachers, rhinos are still being killed at the park.

This month, The Telegraph, an Indian newspaper, reported that a rhino was found dead in the park with her horn removed. Poachers had killed it with AK-47 rifles.

The Wildlife Protection Society of India has recorded four killings of tigers by poachers this year, and 50 such deaths last year.

Survival International, a UK human rights group, described the shoot- on- sight policy as brutal and said 50 people had been executed by rangers at Kaziranga in the past three years.

It was concerned that the policy would be enacted at increasing numbers of national parks in India, and said that could encourage violence against the country’s tribal people, many of whom live around national parks.

“It’s time for a global outcry against extrajudicial killings and torture in the name of conservation,” said Survival International.

“It wouldn’t be tolerated in any other field and it should be loudly condemned by all those who care about human rights and the environment.”

The rights group cited the example of Akash Orang, a seven-year-old boy from one of the tribes in the Kaziranga area. It said rangers shot and maimed the boy last year, which led to him spending five months in hospital.

Kaziranga officials responded to the BBC documentary by claiming that the park did not have a shoot-on-sight policy but that its guards had legal immunity should they kill a poacher.

Mr Simlai said there were cases in which rangers misused their authority in Kaziranga, similar to the misuse of power found in “any policing force in India, the police force and the armed forces”.

Mr Khandal said “a carrot and stick” approach had to be used to tackle poaching, including helping poachers or would-be poachers to find alternative livelihoods.

Although high-profile efforts were helping to control the killing of tigers and rhinos, the poaching of other animals, such as leopard and pangolin, was on the rise, he said.

“Poachers are shifting to other animals.”

‘ If the forest guards were not armed and those powers were not given in Kaziranga, we would not have the Indian one-horned rhino alive today Trishant Simlai conservation biologist from Pune, western India